UFF-FAU represents non-tenure-track faculty.

Over 25% of faculty covered by the UFF-FAU Collective Bargaining Agreement are non-tenure-track faculty (NTTFs). These are mostly instructors, but also include librarians, scientists and researchers, counselors and others.  Some NTTFs work in academic departments while others work in non-teaching units.

UFF-FAU recognizes that NTTFs are a key part of the university and we are committed to advocating for NTTFs’ working conditions and to including NTTFs in union leadership.  NTTFs serve in key UFF-FAU leadership roles, including UFF Senator and negotiating team member.

The vast majority of contractual protections contained in the Collective Bargaining Agreement (CBA) apply to NTTF as well as tenure-track employees.  NTTFs’ contractual rights include:

  • clear evaluation procedures and promotion pathways
  • intellectual property protection
  • paid parental leave
  • clear procedures for disciplinary action
  • and, as a full member, representation in a grievance process with binding arbitration if your contract rights are violated.

For more on the CBA, see the section of this website on Collective Bargaining.

The university administration has made it clear that it will continue to hire large numbers of instructors, since instructors teach large numbers of undergraduate students. As at most other universities, the reduction in state funding combined with the administration’s shifting of priorities from teaching and research to non-teaching administrators and staff means that, over time, the percentage of NTTF will continue to increase.

Recognizing this fact, your union has recently focused attention on improving the working conditions of NTTF. The objective is to better integrate NTTF into the faculty and the university. Instructors and other NTTF have articulated three priorities:

  1. Like other faculty, all NTTF at FAU need a raise. This remains a top priority for the union and one of our biggest challenges.
  2. A promotion structure for instructors, the vast majority of NTTF (librarians and some other NTTF already have a promotion structure). After hard bargaining, UFF-FAU achieved a promotion structure for instructors paralleling that for professors, and it is currently being phased in.
  3. Greater job security. Until recently, instructors might not know until July or August if they had a job the next academic year, and this lack of job security has been destructive to morale and contributed to greater turnover of faculty. As a first step in addressing this problem, UFF-FAU bargained a provision that ensures that instructors will know in the spring if their contracts will be renewed. In the longer run, the union will focus on multi-year contracts for instructors who have been promoted to Senior Instructor or University Instructor.